This Horrible Day - Never Again

By Vijay Kumar

SINCE 1947, India is said to be the largest Democracy in the world. But for the period between June 1975 and March 1977, USA was the largest democracy. This was the day forty years ago when Internal Emergency was declared in India and for nearly two years Democracy was in the ICU. Fortunately it came back to life. Unfortunately there is a talk of a possible return of the demon. We should ensure that it never happens again, when liberty was chained and more than a lakh of people were jailed - all for saving a government. Even justice was put on hold, when the Supreme Court held that the citizens had no fundamental rights, not even the right to life during the emergency. The Attorney General told the court that if a policeman under the orders of his superior was to shoot a person or even arrest a Supreme Court judge, it would be legal and no relief would be available.

Those who forget history are condemned to repeat its mistakes, let us not forget the emergency and let us not repeat.

During the emergency, the Government used to display huge hoardings with slogans. One such hoarding read:

The Nation is fighting corruption Encourage it!